A conventional seat for vehicles, such as a seat for automobiles, includes side supports that mainly hold the thighs of a passenger, so-called seat banks, in the right and left side surfaces of a seat cushion so that the height of the right and left portions of the seat cushion that forms the seating surface of the seat is higher than the height of the center of the seat cushion in order to hold the body of the passenger with respect to the inertial force in the right-left direction during running.
Consequently, an operation of passing over the side supports provided on the right and left sides of the seat cushion when the passenger gets on and off the vehicle is required, resulting in deteriorating getting-on and -off properties. In addition, in the posture in which the outer leg is put out of the vehicle during getting on and off the vehicle, the leg is difficult to reach the ground outside the vehicle because the right and left portions of the seat cushion are high due to the side supports.
To address such problems, the seat for vehicles, such as the seat for automobiles, is being developed to enable smooth getting on and off the vehicle while ensuring holding properties during seating.
As a background art of this technical field, there is a technique in Patent Literature 1. Patent Literature 1 discloses a seat for vehicles in which a side support is provided in the side portion of a seat body, the seat for vehicles including a cloth-like member that encloses the side support, and a winding device that can wind and unwind the cloth-like member, in which the cloth-like member is wound by the winding device to press and lower the side support, and the cloth-like member is unwound to release the pressing with respect to the side support.
As another background art of this technical field, there is a technique in Patent Literature 2. Patent Literature 2 describes a seat for vehicles that includes a seat cushion and a seat back, the seat cushion being mounted so as to be turnable about a horizontal axis with respect to a vehicle floor, in which the seat cushion includes a main body that forms the seating portion of a passenger, and a bank body mounted via a hinge in at least the side portion on the outer side of both side portions of the main body, in which the bank body is turned so as to be ridged with respect to the main body so that the seating state of the passenger can be supported, in which the seat cushion includes a raising and lowering mechanism that turns the bank body on the outer side downwardly from the ridged state when the seat cushion is turned above a predetermined angle from the front to the outer side.